hellgatefandomcom-20200223-history
Vitero-Doll's Unofficial Evoker Strategy Guide
Introduction This is a project in progress by Virus from Hellgate London Official Forums. Please do not edit this without Virus's permission. Thank you for your cooperation. It is imperative that you PM me on the Official HGL Forums to add information because I WORK ON THIS IN A WORD DOCUMENT. IF I AM UNAWARE OF YOUR CONTRIBUTION, IT WILL BE DELETED ON THE NEXT UPDATE. So please PM me with your contributions and I will credit you and add it in the internal version. The Vitero-Doll is an acronym for three players, Ratero, blood-doll and myself which the vast majority of the information has been compiled by. Not saying that the players mentioned above are at all better or what not, but just the information has been compiled by these posters. All information and references will be made near the completion of the guide. Thank you all for reading this guide and I hope it helps those new to the Evoker Community and those who are older and still need a bit more. This is still a work in progress and I’ll be updating it whenever I can. Please PM me added information because once again, it will be deleted on accident when I finish parts on my copy. Thanks and the discussion of this guide will be hosted on the Official HGL forums. So if you have anything to add, please check the thread there. Evoker Introduction Evokers are the standard caster class. They are not support-set characters because Flagship Studios opted to make each and every class ‘stand alone’. However their attempt to balance each class and allow equal play strengths, the Evoker seems to be lacking in several areas including, spam ability of spells, stamina, power stamina, spell damage, and pure damage per second. Even though these inherent weaknesses show fault, they can easily be turned into strengths. The Evoker class is the only class that cannot rely on starter weapons and the default skills and attacks for very long. After reading this guide, I hope to shine more light on the illusively forgotten class of Evokers. Evoker Creation Knowledge is the key to victory. The above statement will be your best friend during your time as an Evoker. Our skills lack the descriptive usefulness that the Hunter and Templar sections share. Marksman’s Multishot is self-explanatory. Guardian’s Auras are quite reliable in descriptive terms. Hellfire, which is a lvl 30 skill for an Evoker is very descriptive in what it does. Except for the three-second aiming delay. And the extraordinarily bad AoE damage it has, except from the initial blast. Also did you realize that it even takes another one or two seconds to hit the ground after the targeting delay? This is why this section of the guide is so critical in Creation is concerned. What skills actually work in which mode? You can cast a Venom Armor and watch everything die in Normal, but is it the same in Normal and Nightmare? Questions like these are what this guide is meant to answer. What stat points are actually useful? Will you need Accuracy? Does Willpower increase Damage of spells? How can you tell your build will work? If there is a slim chance or even a far-between respec option, are you willing to ‘waste’ time testing builds? So many questions to get answered. The Hellgate London Official Forums is the best place to get many of these answered, because the forums will always have the most up to date answers. This guide can also be used. That is why I strived to get as much organization as possible. So instead of reading pages of information searching for a couple of specific paragraphs, you should be able to easily find the information you’re searching for. That being said, like Ratero and I both preached long ago, Evoker builds are built before Naming of a Character. So many options as an Evoker, so many support skills, so many skills that will override other skills as the ‘main’ attack if not planned properly. Putting points into Spectral Bolt to get a lvl 1 Lash serves you no real purpose if your ultimate goal is to get a lvl 10 Arc Legion. These problems are what you need to work out before you roll your character, or you will feel like you have a workable, but not ‘perfected’ build. The following section will provide a basis of what you need to be thinking through as you go about making your character. See the Skills section if you want more in depth information concerning Skill-Builds, or jump to the Evocation Builds section which have multiple viable builds to use. Starting Points Starting Level 1 Stats Stat Points Accuracy – 10 Strength – 15 Stamina – 15 Willpower – 35 Health – 75 Power Pool – 110 Power Regeneration – 225/minute Resistances – 50 All Elemental Starting Skill – Spectral Bolt What Each Stat Point Does Accuracy - Decreases the reticule of your ranged weapons (not including Focus weapons). Also adds critical chance to your guns. Useful if you're making a non-traditional Evoker, such as a gun-evoker. There is also evidence that accuracy decreases the spread of Flame Shards, Firestorm and Skull Splitter, however in many people’s eyes this is a nerf, and not an ideal thing. The only other reason you may want to pump this is if you are wielding, or planning on wielding dual Mind Control weapons, or some Jade Hydras etc. Strength - Adds to melee damage, which is completely useless, unless you go for a kicking-evoker. Strength also allows you to equip heavier or better armor. Generally speaking, your starting points, coupled with your +Stat bonus off items will cover this expense. Stamina - Each point in this stat increases your Health Pool by 5 points. It also determines how much ‘decent’ gear you will wear. Willpower - Each point in Willpower adds 2 Power to your total power pool and 3 Power Regeneration/minute. Also determines Requirement costs for modifications (relics) and Focus Weapons. Health Pool Increase per Level – 9 Health Pool Increase per Stamina Point – 5 Power Pool Increase per Level – 0 Power Pool Increase per Willpower Point – 2 Power Regen Increase per Level – 0 Power Regen Increase per Willpower Point – 3/minute Resistance Increase per Level – 10 All Elemental Stat Point Allocations per Level – 5 Total Stat Point Allocations from Leveling – 245* *Does not include the bonus stat points from quests. Skill Trees There are five elemental trees we, as Evokers, get to select skills from, and they are: Fire, Spectral, Lightning, Bone, Toxic. Which correspond to the five elemental debuffs: Ignite, Phase, Shock, Stun, and Poison. Each of these trees has it's advantages and disadvantages and the careful Evoker will pick and choose with this in mind. Keep in mind as well that as your character grows and you start filling out your build, you'll have to keep up a nice power pool for him/her or you may soon be wishing you had more power or selected a different tree that used less power. Let's take a quick look at the different trees. The below descriptions are not meant to be an in depth description of each Skill Tree but just a quick brush stroke giving the player an idea what each Skill Tree does in general. We want to leave it up to the player to scratch a bit deeper for a more understanding of them. Besides the normal five elemental trees, we as Evokers have access to other skills that come from our Sister class of Summoners and some can be considered to be Cabalist orientated skills since they are shared by all Cabalists. These skills have a wide arsenal of usages ranging from buffs, debuff and curses. I will try to make a section for those later on, however the Damaging Trees seem to be the most requested. The five elemental trees combined with the Cabalist support skills make us who we are. Unique in every way and fashion since no two of us are or can be the same exact Evoker. Fire Tree Synopsis This Skill Tree offers the Evoker a highly damaging skill set that causes the enemy to ignite and die quickly. This Tree's skill range varies from 8m to 28m depending upon the skill used. This means, you’ll be either in medium or short range with most creatures when you use these skills. This Skill Tree is also power intensive, so your power pool generally takes a huge hit while doing the fire skills. Although this isn’t the most mana-intensive skill set out there, it sure does pay a toll on your pool. Many Evokers have picked this Skill Tree, loved it and complained that it took to much power to maintain it. This power drain does come with it’s perks however. Firestorm is one of the highest DPS spells the Evoker has altogether. The current latter tier spells in the Fire Tree are a bit lack luster to most, but some players have found a huge benefit in taking these skills. Use this Tree as needed, support your power pool and back off as necessary to conserve power and you will love this tree. Spectral Tree Synopsis This Skill Tree offers the Evoker the chance to kill their opponents from a range that no other Skill Tree offers 45m. The two damaging skills are Spectral Bolt and Spectral Lash. Spectral Bolt has a range of 28m and a huge chance to Phase opponents. Lash is the sniper skill of Evokers, having the chance to get up to 45m in length. This Tree can be highly damaging or moderately damaging depending on the skill used. This Tree does not take as much power to use as the Fire Tree but since you'll be constantly using it, it will drain your power none the less. This Tree causes the Phase de-buff, which when triggered, can out damage any other skill on a single mob. Lightning Tree Synopsis This Skill Tree offers the Evoker an escape for the one de-buff none of us enjoy: Shock. All Lightning skills can be used while Shocked and many of them are truly powerful. Starting off with Lightning Field, a smaller damaging skill but can be used in masse, creating a blanket of sparks between you and your enemy. Tempest has incredible range, with a radius of 25-30m. Arc Legion is by far the player-pool favorite spell in that it can be channeled by the Evoker, and that’s all that’s really needed. It auto tracks its targets (up to 10) and is easily used by players. This Skill Tree when used can be highly effective which is shown by many Evokers. This Tree is highly versatile and you can get pretty creative in finding different ways in using it. Bone Tree Synopsis This Skill Tree uses physical damage to kill your enemies via skills revolving around the theme of Bones. This Tree is quite nice to do direct physical damage and also can stun your opponents, which has been deemed one of the best de-buff attributes, second only to ignite. Stun lasts around 0.5 – 1.0 second and can be the deciding factor in life or death, especially for Evokers. Although there hasn’t been many builds focused around this Skill Tree primarily because Bone Shards is currently broken and Skull Splitter is very random, more so than Spectral Bolt. Demonspine however, has been a staple for many builds due to it’s potential stun strength of over 6,000 and it’s piercing ability. Toxic Tree Synopsis This Skill Tree uses the immense power of Toxic Bugs and elementals to lay waste to your enemies. This Tree seems to be the weakest in direct attacks, but it does have it's place in the Evokers arsenal of skills and the wise Evoker will at least consider this Tree before choosing not to use this Tree at all. Many reasons have grown since the end of BETA to have this tree a must have in many builds. Firstly, Venomous Spirit has been shown to improve maneuverability in homing potential with increased Accuracy Points. Also Venom Armor, although seemingly overpowered in Normal modes, gives the Evoker a much needed damage mitigation and a decent passive damage output. Normal Mode Don’t sweat your build in Normal Difficulties. Literally with no severe penalties for death, and a few very overpowered spells at your disposal, Normal mode is really the easy cheesy mode. No specifications are really required. If you’re running in Normal you either are testing skills or making a PvP character (see below). Normal is the proving ground for a lot of skills, but be aware that many skills that single handedly ran you through normal will not tote the same weight as the other modes of play. Elite Mode Standard difficulty they say. Many players feel like Elite or Nothing is the way to play this game. So chances are, you’ll make an Elite character as well. Things to take into consideration is that Stamina will be much appreciated in Elite, Shields will go down in 1 or 2 hits, even if you have over 700 shields, Venom Armor is no longer to carrier spell, and Firestorm’s range clearly shows it’s ugly face in Elite. Things that didn’t bother you in Normal will soon bother you in Elite. Stamina will be pumped more so in Elite than in Normal due to the tremendous Shield Overload monsters have and high overall damage output they have anyway. Harcodre and PvP Modes Stamina. That’s the single word of the day in both these modes of play. Please remember that HC Players cannot participate in PvP the correct way. Because when they die, they die. These two modes are scarce to find and act in similar fashions. Both want high amounts of Health and high amounts of Damage Mitigation. Which brings us to word two: Strength. I advocate pumping Strength a bit early on so you can wear better equipment. Offensive and Defensive capabilities matter a whole lot more in HC and PvP, and specific armor pieces with certain attributes on them will be hunted for. Things like +Armor, +Total Armor %s, Power Regeneration and Shield Penetration will be sought after more so than Normal and Elite. These specific armor types will require more strength. It is possible to get enough +Strength or +All Attributes gear to suffice that need, but it is very hard to run Shulgoth and 314 if you don’t have enough Armor. Careful game play and EXTREMELY SPECIFIC skill allocation is required for both HC and PvP due to the extreme situations they will both undertake. These modes are meant for the knowledgeable players. Focus Weapons These are the weapons that allow us Evokers, to be Evokers. Without these focus items, we would not be able to channel the demonic powers that we can wield. Focus items come in 6 different varieties, each with its own special benefit (See Table Below). As your character progresses through the game, you’ll likely continuously switch between different types of Focus Weapons that suit your current skill layout, switch skills and situations. Although the in-game tip of “You should have a battle set and an elemental strength set” is often laughed at, many players have found it very useful to have these said switches. To fully understand Focus Weapons in their entirety, continue to read the following sections. Basic Stats Weapon Rating This is the big number that you see if you mouse over your weapon. On ALL Focus Weapons, there is a Spectral Damage symbol next to this number. This number is NOT your damage output. It is solely a rating of your weapon. The number is based on Weapon Rarity, damage, All Elemental Strength, and other factors, such as current modifications and augments. Power Damage This is your damage output number. Right click your weapon to see this number. This number is tricky to understand at first, especially with Dual Focus, however, many Evokers have compiled enough information to generate a semi-accurate damage formula for calculating Spell Damage (see Spell Damage). More information on this can be found below, under Dual Wield vs Single Wield. All Elemental Strength This number is the strength to de-buff your opponent. We currently do not know the formula for the de-buff’s chance but we do know that the higher number of AES you have, you’ll have a likelier chance to cause the de-buff. More information can be seen below. De-buffs Ignite The fire activated de-buffs. Once the ignite de-buff is applied to an enemy, they will lose 5% of their total health every second. This is more effective on bosses and less effective on regular mobs. Poison The toxic activated de-buffs. Once an enemy gets the poisoned de-buff, they will lose health at a rapid rate. Mobs or players are unable to heal when poisoned. Also there is evidence that movement speed is reduced. Most mobs will not have high poison defenses. Or so they say. Phase The spectral activated de-buffs. A phased enemy takes 50% more damage and deals 50% less damage. This improves the players (or the monsters) damage output and is definitely considered a highly preferred de-buff. Shock The lightning activated de-buffs. A short stun and the inability to use spells mark the shocked opponent. Although Evoker Lightning Skills can still be used. Stun The physical activated de-buffs. Stun is a simple de-buff which causes the monster or the player to be immobilized for a period, which lasts around a half of a second to a full second. Fear Not affected by +Strength modifications. Feared enemies run away from the caster. Players cannot be feared. All Elemental Strength This is the determining factor on the chance to proc a de-buff. These numbers are higher on Radiant Focus Weapons and are a bit difficult to understand at first. To cause any de-buff, you need two things: Elemental Damage and the matching Elemental Strength. The term “All Elemental Strength” is very misleading as well. Focus Weapons can channel one type of Elemental Spell at a time, and the “All Elemental Strength” only applies to the spell that is being channeled through the said Focus Weapon. For example, when using Firestorm, the All Elemental Strength, turns into Ignite Attack Strength, which gives the spell Firestorm to chance to proc ignite. When using Spectral Lash, All Elemental Strength turns into Phase Attack Strength, which gives Lash an inherent ability to proc Phase. Adding the appropriate Element Attack Strength in the form of relics or armor pieces increases the chance to proc the spell’s de-buff. So when using Firestorm if you have +56 Ignite Attack Strength, the chance to proc a de-buff increases. If you have +56 Ignite Attack Strength and you are using Lash, you don’t see ignite proc. Wonder why? Look at the first sentence in the second paragraph. You need both the damage and the attack strength. So when using Lash (Spectral Damage) and adding fire attack strength, you cannot fulfill the ignite proc requirements. If you add another relic with +Fire Damage, you can then proc ignite, because you have both requirements met. Dual Wielding vs Single Wielding Dual Wielding a Focus Item results in 60% of the focus damage from each item being contributed to spell power. Single Wielding provides 100% of the focus damage of the one focus weapon. It is almost always an increase in your spells' damage to dual wield focus items, unless your second focus item is considerably worse than your primary one. The rule of thumb is if your second focus item is less than 2/3s the damage of your primary focus item, do not equip it unless it has very tasty mods, since it will make your spell power go down. In the early game, it can be advantageous to use an offhanded gun and stick to keeping a single focus item updated. At some point in mid-game most choose to dual focus from there on out. Evoker Equipment Under Construction Types Under Construction Normal Suggestions Elite Suggestions Under Construction Suggestions Under Construction Uniques Evocation Skills Under Construction Skill Trees Review Under Construction Skill Revealed Under Construction What it Says Under Construction What it Does Under Construction Skill Damage Under Construction Skill Synergies Under Construction Player’s Comments Under Construction Evocation Builds Under Construction Already Pre-Built Guides Under Construction Player’s Choice Builds If you are looking for a "cookie cutter" way to speed through normal to get to the higher difficulty modes, there are two options. FIRESTORM RUNNER Accuracy: none/as needed Strength: none/as needed Stamina: 70% of points Willpower: 30% of points Essential Skills: 10/10 Firestorm 10/10 Venom Armor 1 Arcane Shield 1 Dual Focus 1 Blink 1 Concentrate Damage 2 Spectral Lash 5 Brom's Curse Ignite can kill any enemy in 20 seconds. This makes you a great boss killer and firestorm itself does massive damage in melee to enemies that don't melee you particularly hard. Venom armor will protect you against the harder hitters, and will be spewing insects everywhere. Brom's curse is used to leech back health when the fighting gets heavy, and triggers frequently from firestorm. Spectral lash is for the pesky flyers. Equipment: Concentrate on maximizing your focus damage and adding Ignite attack strength. LIGHTNING LASH Accuracy: none/as needed Strength: none/as needed Stamina: 40% of points Willpower: 60% of points Essential Skills: 10/10 Spectral Lash 3 Lighning Orb 1 Brom's Curse 1 Arcane Shield 1 Dual Focus 1 Blink 1+ Spectral Lash Mastery (choose either) 1+ Concentrate Damage (choose either, my personal preferance) 1+ Tempest (choose either) The idea of this buildset is that the range at which monsters notice you in normal is quite small, and spectral lash can "snipe" monsters from extreme range. Concentrate damage works well with spectral lash since you can park just about anywhere and still reach the enemies, and when they die at range you don't need to backpetal as much. Lightning orb fills in the tight quarters combat for this build, and once those are down lash and backpetal to clean up the rooms. Blink is merely a means of escape in this build, and thus recieves only one point. As for the (choose eithers) this is my personal experience. -Spectral lash mastery has a tiny range for the explosion, but anything that can phase deserves to be looked at. Overall you'll want it maxxed at some point, but more than one point isn't priority #1 in normal. -Tempest is tempting since the damage is extremely high, and it centers over you, providing a means of cover beyond the standard arcane shield against flank attempts. The spell fails in rooms with low cielings, so it isn't the best spell to compensate for your close quarters combat weakness. -Concentrate damage is meant to work with spectral lash. Your lash gets a 25-70% increase in damage while you are parked with this skill on, and the damage increase itself often protects you from having to move in a "good defense is a good offense" sense. The 10 second cooldown starts when you move, which is bad, but 10 seconds meshes well in the scheme of things, since some of your loot is 45 yards away and your next combat zone is probably 60 or so. Maxxing this skill second is my personal preferance. -You can max lightning orb, with one caveat: Lightning orb's scaling isn't as good as most of the other spells, so much later in the game its relative power diminishes. A great choice for a "disposable" character. Equipment: Concentrate on maximizing your focus damage and adding Phase attack strength. Things that add to will and will regeneration would help to greatly dimish the amount of consumables you'll have to buy. How to Make Your Own Under Construction Other Under Construction Evoker FAQ Under Construction Disclaimer Under Construction References Under Construction Credits Dtekkar ~ Dual Wielding vs Single Wielding Dtekkar ~ Firestorm Runner; Lightning Lash Category:Evoker